Puella Magi Madoka, ep. 06

Ok, I’m certain now. Kyubey IS the actual villain. Come on, the use (by a puella magi) of the grief seed is to absorb “impurity” from the Witch magical girl (sorry, I had that backwards and just noticed)… impurity generated by casting magic (edit: to defeat the witches). And when the grief seed has absorbed so much impurity from the puella magi that it’s totally black, it will generate a witch — except Kyubey absorbs it first.

He’s using them to farm for his food? Or is it a closed loop, in that he’s generated the witches and grief seeds himself? Probably a violation of the Second Law of Magidynamics, but that’s magic for you.

Then of course, there’s the big reveal of the episode, which I’m going to hide inside a second spoiler, so bail now if you have not seen the episode. I really, really, really mean it. I’m not trying to be funny. I really think you shouldn’t read it, unless you have no intention of seeing the episode.

Ok, on your head be it.

When Kyubey turns a girl into a puella magi, he doesn’t “create a soul gem linked to the girl.” He actually removes the girl’s soul, and it literally IS “the soul gem.” The body is effectively just a remote control robot. If the body is separated from the gem by more than 100 meters, it will stop functioning.

And Kyubey just doesn’t understand why it upsets any girl he tells. It becomes terribly obvious that Homura already knew this, but the murderous redhed girl didn’t, and she’s really not happy with Kyubey. As in grab him by his ears, and scream in his face upset. “What the hell did you do to us????”

4 Responses to Puella Magi Madoka, ep. 06

The question is, where do the witches come from? (Or the familiars, as it were.) If Kyubei’s involved in generating them, then yes, he is definitely the antagonist.

This episode mentioned a Walpurgisnacht… which implies that there’s at least some sort of organization among witches? Yet Kyoko knew the significance of that, even though she didn’t know the other secret stuff, nor did she have Akemi’s antipathy towards Kyubei. So it’s not like we’re going to see a big witch meeting chaired by Kyubei, right? (one hopes not, anyway…)

Also, if the bodies can take mortal injury without the magical girl dying, then how did Mami go down so easy?

Forget Kyubey, what has me scratching my head is why Homura didn’t tell Madoka and Sayaka about the whole soul-gem business. If she wants to discourage them (or at least Madoka, too late for Sayaka now) from becoming Puella Magi, I think letting them know about that particular downside would go a long way.

As for Mami, I’m guessing her soul gem got destroyed when the witch ate her.

IIRC, Mami kept her soul gem as an earring. [spoiler]Head bitten off = destroyed gem[/spoiler] And I’m not sure that the girls would have believed Homura under the circumstances… though they could have asked Kyubey. Perhaps Homura thought he would lie.